When news of the disaster reached the Choctaw people they gathered what money they could and sent it to help Ireland. It may seem like a modest sum, but the $150 sent by the Choctaw was all they could muster at the time. In today’s terms, it equates to around $5,300.

They were moved by tales of the suffering in Ireland, possibly because they too had experienced multiple hardships. Many thousands had been forced to leave their homelands and live on reservations. Disease and starvation had already laid waste to many Native American people, and some descendants live in impoverished conditions to this day.

That act of kindness from 1847 has now inspired another, reciprocal, wave of support.

Paying it back

In March, an online fundraising campaign was set up to help buy food, water and other much-needed supplies for the people of two Native American tribes – the Hopi and Navajo – suffering from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

As of 7 May, the GoFundMe page had raised almost $2.9 million. A surprising number of donations have been made by Irish people. Cassandra Begay of the Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund took to the donor comments left on the page to find an explanation.

“We noticed a flux of donations from Ireland and our leadership team was like ‘what’s going on?’” she told RTE News. “So we started reading the comments about the history between the Choctaw Nation and Ireland … and we just thought it was so beautiful.”

These health conditions are made even more worrying by the circumstances faced by far too many Native Americans. Many live in cramped conditions, in multi-generational households without routine access to safe drinking water. These elements combine to put the older members of the community especially at risk.

In 2017, a statue was unveiled in County of Cork, Ireland, to commemorate the Choctaw generosity. Called Kindred Spirits, the stainless steel sculpture is made up of nine six-metre eagle feathers, arranged in a circle.